Elbow Joint Pain

Elbow Joint Pain can exist for a number of reasons, and can show up in a variety of 'flavors' of pain.

Depending on the cause of the elbow pain, there can be other symptoms too.

If you have pain in your elbow joint, and it's not going away, then you need to identify what kind of pain you're having, and if you don't already know, identify what is CAUSING the pain.

Doctors tend to focus only on symptoms and don't ask why those symptoms are present. But if you want to get rid of the joint pain in your elbow, then you need to know WHY your elbow is hurting.

Elbow Joint Pain Symptoms

Symptoms can vary depending on the cause of the symptoms (and there's more than one).

You can have one or more of the following:

Burning in elbow

Burning pain in elbow joint

Tendon pain in elbow

Elbow pain and stiffness

Sharp elbow pain

Sharp pain in elbow when moving

Reduced range of elbow motion

Inner elbow pain

Burning In Elbow

Burning pain in the elbow refers to a general 'burning' sensation around the joint. When most people say 'in the elbow', they really mean around the whole joint.

A burning sensation is just that: hot, 'cooking', 'burning'. This is not a hot 'skin' feeling, it's deeper than that.

The pain enhancing chemical released by the Pain Causing Dynamic is primarily responsible for the sensation. Also, extra 'heat' from blood trapped in the area.

Burning Pain In Elbow Joint

Elbow pain inside the joint can include burning pain.

As said above, most people mean 'around the joint' when they say 'in the joint'.

But sometimes you can absolutely feel pain IN the joint, deep inside. That's due to inflammation chemical inside the joint, compression of the joint lining, and an acute pain response.

Burning pain can be from regular inflammation process, and/or from an arthritis inflammation process.

Tendon Pain In Elbow

You can mistakenly feel tendon pain as joint pain.

Big tendons (bicep, pronator teres, triceps) cross the joint and attach very near it. If they are painful and inflammed with tendonitis symptoms, it's common to feel that pain and inflammation in the joint itself. Partly because those big muscles compress the elbow joint, and that compression causes it's own elbow pain.

Elbow Pain And Stiffness

When there is inflammation at and/or in the elbow joint, there will be pain.

When there is inflammation of the joint of the elbow, there will be stiffness (because that inflammation swells the interior of the joint, and then it's pressing on itself even more, making motion harder to accomplish and thus the feeling of elbow stiffness.

Sharp Elbow Pain

Sharp elbow pain can be from a few things:

acute inflammation

actual damage to joint tissue

joint/bone bruise (from impact)

ligament (attached to the elbow joint) injury

Sharp Pain In Elbow When Moving

Sharp elbow pain can be from a few things:

acute inflammation

actual damage to joint tissue

joint/bone bruise (from impact)

ligament (attached to the elbow joint) injury

With any of those scenarios, when you move the elbow joint, you can get sharp pain. Either sharper pain (because you already had sharp pain) or sudden sharp pain (when you had no pain previously).

Reduced Range Of Elbow Motion

Elbow pain can cause a reduction of range of motion in one or both of two ways:

it hurts when you move the elbow past a certain point, so you stop

if your elbow joint hurts, there is inflammation and swelling and joint compression, so the physical structure of the joint is inflamed/swollen and so it literally can't hinge optimally...because the hinge is swollen and grinding on itself

Inner Elbow Pain

If pain is just on the inner side of the elbow joint, that's probably a ligament sprain or elbow tendonitis.

Elbow Tendonitis (Tennis Elbow) never gets listed as one of the causes of elbow joint pain.

But it is.

The tendonitis dynamic consists of progressively tightening muscle structures, and those muscles compress the elbow joint. This causes pain, and osteoarthritis.

Impact Injury

Car accidents, sports impacts, falling off a roof, slipping and landing on a straight arm (elbow joint locked) or hitting the elbow joint itself, can all cause elbow joint pain.

In these scenarios, essentially a Bone Bruise has been caused. This causes a lot of pain, sharp pain in elbow when bending, extreme pain in elbow, and elbow pain and stiffness (all due to swelling of the elbow joint and inflammation enhancing pain).

Should I Be Worried About My Elbow Joint Pain?

Chronic pain is not 'natural' or 'normal', no matter how common it is (and it's very common).

Impact or injury will heal, but often leaves other factors in play that result in ongoing pain/problem/stiffness/etc.

Arthritis is 100% reversible (up to a certain point of damage/deformation), though the worse it gets the the harder it is to reverse it.

If you have elbow pain, YES you should be worried about it.

YES you should do something about it sooner than later.

YES you should do something EFFECTIVE about it sooner than later.

Something about the human mind is wired to expect (and and plan on) that our bodies will heal and pain will eventually go away. Unfortunately, that is often not the reality, and a person may notice that 10 years have gone by and the pain is not only still there, it's worse.

That is a very common experience....suddenly realizing that it's been years and the pain hasn't actually gone away.

Low grade rarely motivates people. Significant pain often does.

Regardless of the severity or mildness of your elbow pain, joint pain is a problem, and it's there for a reason.